Southern California's $1.6 trillion economy is larger than 18 states combined – Orange County Register

I often forget the sheer size of Southern California's economy.

My trusty table — filled with the federal government's annual tally of gross domestic product by county — says the six-county region produced $1.57 trillion worth of goods in services in 2022.

Now 13 digit numbers are hard to fathom. Let's add some perspective to this broad, inflation-adjusted measure of business production:

It accounts for 7% of the country's total business.

Only two states have larger economies – Texas and New York.

Southern California's production exceeds the economic output of 18 states combined.

Additionally, the region's business activity is only slightly smaller than production in the rest of the state. The other 52 counties produced $1.6 trillion in 2022 — a 0.4% decline for the year but a 9.3% increase since 2019.

That works out to California's GDP of $3.2 trillion (No. 1 among states) – up 0.7% year-to-date (No. 41) and up 6.9% since 2019 (No. 14 ).

Count counties

These six Southern California counties all rank in the top 77 in terms of GDP generated among the 3,113 counties counted in the United States.

Consider what's going on locally in each county, ranked by GDP…

The angel: With a GDP of $790 billion, it is the No. 1 state among U.S. states, just ahead of New York (Manhattan) and Cook (Chicago). Compared to the states, Los Angeles's output is roughly equivalent to Pennsylvania's economy. LA's GDP grew 2.1% for the year, but has only increased 3% since 2019.

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Orange: $270 billion, No. 9 in the U.S. and tied with Connecticut. Up 0.9% over the year and up 4.8% since 2019.

San Diego: $257 billion, No. 10 in the U.S. and tied with Oregon. Up 2.9% over the year and 8.9% since 2019.

Note that Orange and San Diego fall between San Francisco and Maricopa (Phoenix) counties.

San Bernardino: $101 billion, No. 39 in the U.S. – ranked between Wayne County (Detroit) and Allegheny County (Pittsburgh). It's on par with New Mexico. GDP increased by 1.3% over the year and by 7% since 2019.

River bank: $95 billion, No. 45 in the U.S. – ranked between Wake County (that's Raleigh, North Carolina) and Denver County in Colorado. It's on par with Idaho. GDP increased by 0.8% over the year and by 5.1% since 2019.

Ventura: $53 billion, No. 77 in the U.S. – ranked between New Haven County, Connecticut and the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County. It's comparable to Montana. GDP fell by 0.4% over the year and increased by 2% since 2019.

Bottom line

Size isn't everything – and the region's business growth has been subpar since the pandemic upended the economy.

Southern California's GDP increased 1.8% in 2022 and increased 4.6% since the 2019 pandemic.

This lags the country's business expansion: $21.7 trillion was produced in 2022 – up 1.9% year-over-year and up 5.3% since 2019.

And only in Los Angeles and San Diego counties did GDP growth exceed U.S. growth last year. And San Diego and San Bernardino in particular exceeded the country's three-year jump.

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Also, consider which places among the country's 100 largest economies are experiencing the fastest GDP growth according to my table…

One-year expansion: Douglas (Omaha) at 9.2%, Collin (Dallas suburbs) at 8.7%, Travis (Austin) at 7.7%, Denver at 7.3% and Davidson (Nashville) at 6.9%. San Diego is the best in Southern California, ranking 37th at 2.9%.

Three-year expansion: Denton (Dallas suburbs) at 27%, Travis (Austin) at 23%, Collin (Dallas suburbs) at 22%, Santa Clara, California at 20% and Denver at 18%. Southern California's top performer is San Diego at No. 27 at 8.9%.

Need I say more?

Planetary perspective

Let me mention that Southern California's economy also appears large on a global scale.

Now, to compare local GDP with the World Bank's 2022 international business statistics, a slightly different production figure is used – “current” production in unadjusted dollars. By this calculation, the six-county region's GDP of $1.8 trillion is almost as large as Brazil, the world's 11th largest economy.

And by county…

The angel: 913 billion US dollars – just above 19th place Turkey.

Orange: 314 billion US dollars – just above 45th place Romania.

San Diego: 296 billion US dollars – just above the 47th place Czech Republic.

San Bernardino: 123 billion US dollars – just below 61st place Ethiopia.

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River bank: 115 billion US dollars – tied with 62nd place Slovakia.

Ventura: $62 billion – just above #85 Slovenia.

And California as a whole? With a current GDP of $3.6 trillion, it is the world's fifth largest economy behind the United States, China, Japan and Germany and just ahead of India and the United Kingdom.

Jonathan Lansner is a business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]